Economy

The summer shopping season is off to a solid start. National retail sales were up two percent for the week that ended Saturday compared with the previous week, according to the International Council Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs Weekly Chain Store Sales Index. Year-over-year, the news was even better: sales …

May was a good month for jobs in the Inland Empire. The two-county region’s unemployment rate fell to eight percent last month, down from 8.3 percent in April and well below the 9.7 percent jobless rate that was predicted one year ago, according to the state Employment Development Department. That’s …

National retail sales bounced back slightly last week, despite bad weather in some parts of the country Sales were up 0.4 percent for the week that ended Saturday compared with the previous week, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs Weekly Chain Stores Sales Index. Overall …

The Southern California housing market hit a bump in the road during May. Sales of single-family homes in the six-county region dropped 2.3 percent from April and were down 15.1 compared with May of last year, according to DataQuick’s monthly housing report. Year-over-year sales have now dropped for eight consecutive …

Some more good jobs news, this time from U.S. Department of Labor. There were 4.5 million job openings on the last business day of April, up from 4.2 million at the end of March, according to data released Tuesday by the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics. The hires rate, 3.4 …

The rush of spending by U.S. consumers during the last week of May slowed down last week. Same-store-sales were down 2.8 percent during the week that ended Saturday compared with the previous week, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs Weekly Chain Stores Sales Index, which …